Music library index random errors, with album appearing 3 times each with the same single track
This problem is new to me. When I either scan my NAS library for more music, or remove the library and reattach it, I get two or three albums which index incorrectly. Specifically:
The album appears 3 times in the album list
Each instance contains the SAME single track (not different tracks, as would be the case if there was an AlbumArtist tagging issue)
The other tracks in the album aren't shown anywhere
The album can be seen in full and played from the folder navigation
No changes have been made to the folder structure or tagging on the original files
I've attached screenshots. The key point seems to be each instance contains the same single track, not different tracks as happens if the tagging on a compilation album is incorrect.
This usually corrects itself if I go into the underlying file structure and move the MP3 files into a newly created folder (a tip I saw elsewhere in this forum). But when I rescan to get that change included in the music library, another album or two will go wrong instead. And sometimes ones that have been corrected go wrong for a second time.
This is slowly rendering my music library useless.
Anyone else experiencing this? Otherwise I'm going to raise a support ticket.
This same track appears in all three album instancesThis same track appears in all three album instances
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Hi, this has been reported to Sonos via the support line. I spoke to them on Tuesday and I was told it would be escalated to level two. They also told me that I would be kept updated, nothing so far. A number of users have reported seeing this problem.
It would be useful if you could also report it to Sonos. The more people that report it the less easy it is for Sonos to ignore it.
I started a thread on this in the Sonos community.
Do a search for "albums have suddenly started to behave strangely"
Ok, thanks. I'll call them in the morning to report it.
Just to feed back on this. I did some more searching and realised that the problem was consistent with the Sonos indexing process corrupting due to connection issues with my NAS music library. I tried a few things, of which the main two were turning off the “Extended Attributes” and “DOS attributes” on my music share (which you do within the NAS UI) as they can slow down the ability of Sonos to read the music files, and also turned off the DLNA server that was running on the NAS (which sets up a competing indexing process). Those changes meant that, when I corrected a folder as outlined above, no other album broke instead.
But the music library was still slow to load (especially the album artwork when I looked at the entire list of albums in my library, adding tracks to a queue etc). So I did some more digging and realised that Sonos was causing a network loop on my system, slowing everything down and thereby causing the index corruptions. I’ve always had two Sonos devices hardwired, with others connected via Sonosnet. But I recently had to replace my main network switch and this time went for a managed switch. I was under the impression that, if I didn’t change any settings, it would operate as an unmanaged switch but for Sonos this is not the case. There is a good page on this on the Sonos support website but I had to change a bunch of settings on the switch to get it working properly. The end result was like night and day - near instant responses to the app, instant album artwork loading, no music indexing problems.
So if you have multiple Sonos devices hardwired, and you have a managed switch in your network, I recommend you disconnect all but one and see if that improves things. If it does, great. But if it only improves things for that device and those close to it, but not for ones further away, you clearly need to have more than once device hardwired and you’ll need to make some setting changes on your switch for that to work.
Just to feed back on this. I did some more searching and realised that the problem was consistent with the Sonos indexing process corrupting due to connection issues with my NAS music library. I tried a few things, of which the main two were turning off the “Extended Attributes” and “DOS attributes” on my music share (which you do within the NAS UI) as they can slow down the ability of Sonos to read the music files, and also turned off the DLNA server that was running on the NAS (which sets up a competing indexing process). Those changes meant that, when I corrected a folder as outlined above, no other album broke instead.
Hi RLB,
My music is stored on a Server (Unraid). I did turn off the DLNA service and re-scanned, sadly no difference. I only have unmanaged switches on my network and five of the six devices I have are wired, all with fixed IP addresses. I couldn't find any info on Extended or DOS attributes on Unraid. I actually checked a NAS drive that I also have and couldn't find anything about that in its UI either. I did have a quick Google on it and I got the impression it was more likely to do with migration of files from Mac devices. I don't have Apple Mac computers apart from an iPad.
Nevertheless I’m pleased it has worked for you. But be careful, I thought I’d fixed it once, then it magically re-appeared later. I have currently left the error on a couple of albums I rarely play (lucky) and turned off daily library scanning, not a good solution but it works, sort of. :-)
I agree - I may not have permanently fixed this. I'll post again if the problem returns.
It is interesting that you also have multiple wired devices. If all the switches are unmanaged that ought to be ok but I do remember Sonos use to post a list of switches that didn't work properly with their system, presumably because of the way they handle STP. It might be worth checking that.
Also you could try temporarily turning off all the units apart from one, and then trying to fix the music library. If you can, but it fails once you start adding back other devices, I guess that's a marker that there's some kind of networking problem.
Just one final comment. I was just reading a Reddit thread about networking issues and Sonos, and the poster mentioned that he was using a mesh Wi-Fi system and wiring Sonos devices into the various nodes (presumably with an unmanaged switch at each node). He was getting network loops because while the switches were fine, the mesh nodes weren't handling STP properly. So something else to think about.
I have ethernet run through the house, and use wired backhaul for my mesh system. And I noticed that if I turned on STP on the ports that had the mesh system connected to it, they would revert to wireless backhaul. That's something to do with the way they check whether the Ethernet or wireless connection is better at startup, which triggers port blocking. I have to turn STP off on the switch ports connected to my mesh nodes to get wired backhaul. So I can believe that mesh and STP could be causing problems for some people depending on the precise network setup.
Just one final comment. I was just reading a Reddit thread about networking issues and Sonos, and the poster mentioned that he was using a mesh Wi-Fi system and wiring Sonos devices into the various nodes (presumably with an unmanaged switch at each node). He was getting network loops because while the switches were fine, the mesh nodes weren't handling STP properly. So something else to think about.
I have ethernet run through the house, and use wired backhaul for my mesh system. And I noticed that if I turned on STP on the ports that had the mesh system connected to it, they would revert to wireless backhaul. That's something to do with the way they check whether the Ethernet or wireless connection is better at startup, which triggers port blocking. I have to turn STP off on the switch ports connected to my mesh nodes to get wired backhaul. So I can believe that mesh and STP could be causing problems for some people depending on the precise network setup.
Wow, you certainly know more about networking than me. Still, at least I know what STP is, thanks Google.
Anyway, I decided to remove all the Ethernet cables and switch over to WiFi, that wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Anyway I managed to get all devices connected apart from my Play 3. I then did a library scan and guess what, yes, it was different, but only in that it fixed two broken albums and generated two new broken albums.
l then tried something else, I deleted the library connection from my Unraid server. I realised I had a duplicate library on my Terramaster NAS that I use as a backup to my Unraid server. So I rescanned the library to find the backup on the NAS, it found the library okay but, yes, you’ve guessed it, two fixed duplicate albums, two new broken albums.
To be honest this is getting beyond a joke, all I want to do is listen to my music without becoming a network engineer on the side.
It would be nice to know if Sonos even care about its customers. Perhaps it should say on the box, “Plays music in between you learning network design”.
Anyway I’ve got to go now to plug in all those network cables and hopefully get the play 3 to work again. 😀
Just to feed back on this. I did some more searching and realised that the problem was consistent with the Sonos indexing process corrupting due to connection issues with my NAS music library. I tried a few things, of which the main two were turning off the “Extended Attributes” and “DOS attributes” on my music share (which you do within the NAS UI) as they can slow down the ability of Sonos to read the music files, and also turned off the DLNA server that was running on the NAS (which sets up a competing indexing process). Those changes meant that, when I corrected a folder as outlined above, no other album broke instead.
But the music library was still slow to load (especially the album artwork when I looked at the entire list of albums in my library, adding tracks to a queue etc). So I did some more digging and realised that Sonos was causing a network loop on my system, slowing everything down and thereby causing the index corruptions. I’ve always had two Sonos devices hardwired, with others connected via Sonosnet. But I recently had to replace my main network switch and this time went for a managed switch. I was under the impression that, if I didn’t change any settings, it would operate as an unmanaged switch but for Sonos this is not the case. There is a good page on this on the Sonos support website but I had to change a bunch of settings on the switch to get it working properly. The end result was like night and day - near instant responses to the app, instant album artwork loading, no music indexing problems.
So if you have multiple Sonos devices hardwired, and you have a managed switch in your network, I recommend you disconnect all but one and see if that improves things. If it does, great. But if it only improves things for that device and those close to it, but not for ones further away, you clearly need to have more than once device hardwired and you’ll need to make some setting changes on your switch for that to work.
Hey RLB!
What kind of NAS are you running? I’m running a Synology, DNLA is off, the software for that ability is not even installed anymore. I have one device on SonosNet, which is a Play 5. I do have a mesh networking system, but it’s never been an issue for me.
